Healers

Healers

Where have all the healers gone,
Mama oh Mama?
We used to lie in the grass & sing,
Mama, oh Mama,
Toes pointed towards heaven,
Mama, oh Mama,
We lay in the grass and sang.
Now concrete is everywhere.

On State Street, I see a homeless man,
in and out of psych wards,
sleeping on park benches, & bring him
hot soup, housing, help.
He touches my arm,
and does a joyous jig.
Soon he is caught again, lost in
the dark city labyrinths.

Where have all the healers gone,
Mama, oh Mama?
We used to lie in the grass and sing,
Now concrete is everywhere.

We are sweeping our streets
With the limbs of our children,
The ones tossed into the cross fire.
We are mopping the blood
Of patients in pain, writhing
On cold ER floors.
Even in trauma centers,
Still no healers.

Beardless boys wrapped
in soaked blankets brought home
from Iraq.
Where were you, Barack,
to prevent this slaughter
Of our promise?
Eighteen, so young to return
without limbs, unable ever to walk,
no home but the darkness of streets,
sleeping, our vets, on the streets of our cities.

Where have all the healers gone,
Mama, oh Mama?
We used to lie in the grass and sing,
Toes pointed towards heaven.
We lay in the grass and sang.
Now concrete is everywhere.

Where have all the healers gone,
All the little ladies brewing roots for health,
The peace pipes, and fecund oases?
Now nothing but hard intellect,
A sharpened acuity,
Words, words, words,
Lynching the lyric of the fragile soul.


Where have all the healers gone,
Mama, oh Mama,
We used to lie in the grass and sing.
"Where have they gone?"
"Hush, child," she says, "now one is among us,
now one, and now one, and now one
A healer among us.
Obama is here."
Oh, Mama, Oh Mama.
Now one, our Obama, Mama,
a healer among us.